Q.

“Alice can be considered a transgressor of the gender norms that Victorian

England imposed”- Do you agree? Substantiate your view with close reference to
the text.
Ans. Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) is set in Victorian England and
in order to understand the gender norms and constraints of the time and to compare those to
the actions and behaviour of the main character of the novel, Alice, the context becomes really
important. The analysis of the creation of Wonderland and the reactions that the main character
presents in her journey proves that she creates a new female subjectivity different from the
ideal gender role that is encouraged by Victorian society. Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures
in Wonderland (1865) taking as a starting point the concepts “the angel in the house” and “the
fallen woman” so as to provide an overview of the historical gender conditions of Victorian
England. Moreover, in order to analyse her female subjectivity and how it departs from the
ideal Victorian woman behaviour through a dream-like journey to Wonderland.
One might think that having a woman as the ultimate power authority would imply an
improvement for the role that women had in society. However, Queen Victoria was completely
against the suffragette movement and "she constantly reiterated her own opposition to women's
rights and her firm belief that her sex belonged in its own separate, domestic sphere" . Not only
that but she also "regularly made protestations of her sex's inferiority and intellectual
inadequacy" . As she was one of the most recognised female figures of England, “Victoria
came to be seen as the very model of marital stability and domestic virtue” , placing her marital
relationship with her husband Albert as a perfect example to follow. According to that
prototype of woman, society created delimitated categories in which women were classified
depending on their behaviour. Coventry Patmore’s poem “The Angel in the House” (1854) is
a great representative of the socially accepted demeanour that women were expected to have.
In the poem, the poet describes his wife who he believes should be a model for all women. The
psychological treats that are encouraged are “passive, meek, charming, graceful, gentle, self-
sacrificing, pious, and above all –pure” . Additionally, he emphasizes women’s belonging to
the domestic sphere, their basic duty as mothers as well as their completely dependence on
their husbands. Nevertheless, stating that this was the only way in which women could act at
the time would be a generalisation. Auerbach in her book ‘The Woman and the Demon: The
life of a Victorian Myth’ explores the creation of this submissive image that is “defined by her
boundaries” as a response to the fear of women’s freedom which would be reminiscent of “the
continued existence of old fears concerning Woman’s satanic alliances” referring to Eve being
seduced by the devil in the Bible. Thus, she explores the binaries of the angel and the demon
also referred to as “the fallen woman”.
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1862 and regardless of
being a male author, as the novel is set in this exact time period, it is full of feelings of
oppression that women experienced in that era. Those feelings are presented and fought against
through the main character of the novel, Alice, and her dreamlike exploration of the menacing
Wonderland.Alice is the seven year old girl protagonist of the novel. She lives in Victorian
England and in spite of the fact that her social class is not clearly stated in the novel, her
manners and her education hint at her belonging to the middle-class. Consequently, the
ideologies of the epoch are evidenced in her manners. As Auerbach exposes: “"Alice herself .
. . confronting a world out of control by looking for the rules and murmuring her lessons, stands
as one image of the Victorian middle-class child.”. Nevertheless, it is through a dream where
she falls through a rabbit-hole, reaching a bizarre land called Wonderland that she experiences
a self-discovering journey that affects her Victorian child image. This image is replaced by one
of a young lady who finds a new female subjectivity not affected by the society in which she
has been raised.
Firstly, the creation of Wonderland itself is the first refusal of the aspects that Victorian society
encourages. From the very first moment she decides to abandon her sister’s side out of boredom
caused by the lady-like accepted activities that she and her sister were supposed to do in their
free time. Alternatively, she decides to follow a white rabbit that has caught her attention, the
first act of rebellion that will lead to many more. Once she embarks on this journey, one has to
notice how she is not on a quest to return home even “though she does admit when stuck in the
White Rabbit’s house that her own home is “pleasanter” than Wonderland”. Her only aim is to
explore the unknown place and to reach the place that has tickled her curiosity the most, the
Queen’s garden. Furthermore, as it has been mentioned previously, the creation of this
mushroom filled, carnivalesque-like land as well as creatures that inhabit it are Alice’s
mechanism to escape the behavioural repression of Victorian society.
An argument that is sometimes used so as to invalidate Alice’s subversion of Victorian manners
is the lack of control in the creation of her own world. However, one of the most significant
parts of the novel for Alice’s development is the well-known “tea party” episode, in “A Mad
Tea-Party, chapter VII, when Alice encounters the March Hare, the Dormouse and the Hatter.
Not only does she ignore the rules of proper behaviour that she has been taught when ignoring
them when they scream “No room! No Room!” at her when they see her approaching the table.
But the most important aspect of this encounter that shapes Alice’s character is created by her
reaction to the Hatter. Since the very first moment, the Hatter, as a male adult, acts in a way in
which Alice is not used to, making “personal remarks” when he points out how her “hair wants
cutting” , asking her to solve riddles that have no answer or defying the naturalistic concept of
time by proposing that it is always six o’ clock. Hence, the fact that she decides not to put up
with Hatter’s rudeness and instead, walks out of the scene thinking that “This piece of rudeness
was more than Alice could bear” . Therefore, "the dainty child carries the threatening kingdom
of Wonderland within her" but as “she becomes an independent thinker and vigorously argues
for her own rights, decisions” it is in the way in which she faces such a treacherous world that
she displays her control mastery.
Another consequence of Alice’s dream journey is the questioning of the education that she has
received. After facing various creatures and their eccentric unusual behaviour, she starts
questioning her own. Before falling down the rabbit-hole, she is very conscious and proud of
her expertise because of how valuable knowledge was in Victorian society. Nevertheless, it is
challenging for her to apply the facts that she has so thoroughly memorised to the real world
since they do not have much use for problem-solving and everyday situations. That is the main
reason why the character often comes off as obnoxious since she is constantly trying to “to get
an opportunity of showing off a little of her knowledge” . However, it is throughout her
exploration of the realm that she realises that if she wants to achieve her goals. She has to
replace all of her memorised rules with the need to satisfy her curious needs. One clear example
is exposed in chapter VI “Pig and Pepper”, when Alice wants to enter the Duchess’ house but
the people inside do not hear her knocking on the door. It is not until Alice realises that her
polished manners do not work that she does not fail to comply with the polite behaviour that
society considered essential. Even if it still resonates in her mind all the time, as the narrator
points out “she was not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first” , it is her
curiosity what makes her act and keep on exploring that dangerous place. So when analysing
Alice’s knowledge and curiosity, one can see that it goes against the traditional “fear of a
woman acquiring knowledge, particularly as a threat to patriarchy” as she is not punished for
being curious and ignoring her manners to satisfy her curiosity by eating unknown food or
entering places where she has not been formally invited, instead “she is never truly punished”
. The novel has often been considered a celebration of curiosity because of how Carroll aligns
that concept with connotations of “triumph and praise” .
The return to her sister’s side once Alice wakes up has often been considered one of the reasons
why her behaviour cannot be considered subversive as regards gender norms. Some critics see
it as a return to the role that society has for her. However, once Alice tells her sister about her
dream, her sister “imagines a grown Alice surrounded by children, she’s telling stories of
Wonderland—thus privileging Alice’s imaginative storytelling over a traditional maternal
image”, in that way she would not comply to that Victorian ideal. Aikens supports this
argument by using the metaphor of Alice growing in size in the house, she argues that this
symbolizes that “Her ideas are too big for the domestic sphere”. Alice’s sister is portrayed as
fearful and passive, this kind of attitude leads to her being “never rewarded with the opportunity
to experience Wonderland, which serves as a representation of the . . . opportunity that lies
before women willing to break the chains of patriarchal rule” . The fact that Alice abandons
this subversive dream-dimension does not imply her acceptance of the Victorian “angel of the
house” model as she is not portrayed “the type of girl who dreams about keeping house for her
future husband or cleans up the dirty dishes at the mad tea party” . Alternatively, she is granted
the possibility to make her own life choices after what she has learnt in Wonderland. She is
given a sense of “newfound independence, liberation, and the ability to actively choose her
own direction in life” which will be very useful despite of the fact that she belongs to a non-
accepting society. This experience will make her become the woman that she wants to be, not
the woman that society wants her to be.
To sum up, it can be stated that Alice can be considered a transgressor of the gender norms that
Victorian England imposed. She deviates from those gender norms by creating a complete new
world that she explores facing many hostilities such as food that alters her size or unwelcoming
creatures. In order to reflect and consider if she could be labelled as a female heroine, there is
no need to search for the male hero pattern that fantasy usually provides in Carroll’s story.
Instead, the reader gets this disobedient child who manages not only to survive this dangerous
adventure but also to learn and become a woman with a new sense of her own subjectivity. A
female subjectivity that refuses ideas of marriage and oppression and instead teaches us that
“we can chase something interesting, barge in where we’re not invited, try new things, observe
strange phenomena, ask too many questions, argue with authority figures, tell stories, and
wander far from home without worrying how to get back”